So, lest the draught distilled
From seasons shed,
And new life unfulfilled,
Go doubly dead,

Lacking the sharing lip,
The mingled breath,
The fruitful comradeship
Of life and death;

That lost accomplishment
She might retrieve,
God to the garden sent
The gardener, Eve,

To link the competence

Of source and need,

And wake the slumbering sense

In slip and seed;

And spread with fork and hone
And pruning knife
The riches death alone
Bequeathes to life.

Then, after days of sun
And nights of shower,
Eagerly one by one
Bud, leaf and flower,

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